Big Cudas and Bass
I haven't posted in a while due to lack of quality fishing but on Thursday, my friend invited me to pursuit the cudas that are in town. Needless to say I said YES!
We launched out of huntington and headed up to longbeach to get some bait. it was a mix of deens and chovies. the weather was perfect and the waves weren't too high. Some swells that picked up as the day went on.
Once we got the bait, we could see the Fleet was straight out of the harbor around horseshoe so we made a bee-line to the bite as we had heard from the fella working at the bait barge that's where they were hitting a lot of berries.
When we reached the mass of boats we stayed outside of the mass of boats and started to do some drifts. My friend Ron pinned on a chovie and let her down with a 1/2 oz sliding sinker. I put on a 4" blue-silver megabait iron re-rigged with a stinger hook at the front like a butterfly jig and removed treble and tossed it out to some open water. first cast in a while and let the iron sink down for a while. I flipped the switch and began a series of pulls and winds instead of a straight grind. after the second pump, I felt a slight tap so I wind down and gave a good pull and I was ON! first cast and I was into fish. It fought pretty hard and when i finally got it it it was about 32". Following that my friend's chovie got bit and he was into fish.
After getting a few on the iron I changes over to my go to bait for almost anything- a bass assassin on a 3/8 oz owners darter head.
All the fish i caught seemed close to the bottom so I let it fall and fall. when I fet it had fallen far enough I gave a bit of a tug and wound in a bit then just twitched the rod but let it fall back down. on the next little twitch I get a tug and i set that hook. The sucker peeled out line crazy and rand for the hills. i could tell it was a nice size fish. When it finally came close the boat it took off and bent the rod deep. i finally landed it and realize i was so luck to have it because the darter head was bent open. the cuda measured out to be 36" and the girth so so thick, it was twice of the other cuda we caught.
I hooked up to over 10 cuda and a couple of BIG sand bass. I released the bass and most of the cudas. keeping a few to make smoked barracuda.
here's a few photos of the day. enjoy!
I caught close to 10 fish and kept only 4. We headed in at noon and hardly used any bait. I caught mine mostly on the megabait and bass assassin.
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Originally Posted by DockRat
